Bitwise Digs Deeper Into On-Chain Vaults With Morpho Launch

Bitwise launched a non-custodial vault on Morpho in January and is now presenting on-chain vaults as a core part of its next product push. The launch puts the asset manager into a DeFi-native wrapper as tokenised assets and on-chain investment structures gain traction.

Bitwise Has Turned Its Vault Strategy Into a Live Product

Bitwise’s January Morpho launch made the vault strategy a live product. The firm said the vault targets a 6% annual percentage yield on stablecoins and is structured as a non-custodial offering.

That places Bitwise in a part of the crypto markets that has mostly been built by DeFi protocols rather than traditional asset managers. It also gives the firm a working example of how it wants to package an on-chain investment strategy.

Hougan Argues Vaults are the Future Wrapper for Asset Management

Matt Hougan, Bitwise’s chief investment officer, used a conference appearance this week to make the firm’s view clear.

“Eventually, all asset management will be done through vaults.”

Bitwise’s argument is that vaults can automate allocation, execution, and rebalancing directly on-chain. In that setup, functions that would usually sit with brokers, fund administrators, or other intermediaries are handled through smart-contract infrastructure. The company is framing that as more than a yield trade. It describes vaults as a wrapper that can sit around managed strategies as more financial products move onto blockchains.

Tokenised Assets Give the Push a Wider Context

The timing also lines up with growth in tokenised real-world assets. Data from RWA.xyz showed the market at about $26.6 billion at the time of writing, led by private credit, U.S. Treasuries, and tokenised funds.

That backdrop helps explain why Bitwise is leaning into vaults now. Traditional managers are already testing blockchain-based wrappers for conventional products, while crypto firms are trying to build native versions of those structures on public chains. Bitwise is placing its Morpho vault inside that broader shift rather than treating it only as a DeFi lending strategy.

Morpho Gives Bitwise an Established Venue

Morpho has grown into one of the larger lending protocols in DeFi and gave Bitwise an established venue for the launch. Bitwise said in January that Morpho had more than $10 billion in deposits when the vault went live.

Bitwise built the vault on Morpho rather than on proprietary rails. The firm controls the strategy design, while Morpho provides the lending infrastructure underneath it.

That makes the product notable as a practical deployment rather than a concept. A larger crypto asset manager is using an existing DeFi protocol to offer an on-chain managed strategy.

Vaults Remain Niche, but Bitwise is Betting They Scale

Vaults are still a small part of digital asset management compared with ETFs and other conventional wrappers. Liquidity, reporting standards, and regulatory treatment still limit how far the model can extend beyond crypto-native markets.

Even so, Bitwise is treating vaults as a serious line of business rather than a side experiment. With more than $15 billion in client assets, the firm is using the Morpho launch to show how on-chain infrastructure can be turned into a managed investment product.